


Antonique and Julianne

by rzbrrii



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-10 16:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6995887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rzbrrii/pseuds/rzbrrii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end it would have hurt less to not remember. but i guess ill tell you the story anyway</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Antonique Lisaletta Clemente

Antonique Liseletta Clemente. Now the hell kinda name is that. it's a damn stupid name but it's mine. Antonique Liselotta Clemente sounds like the name of a pretty girl with a pet cat who lives in a house with stained glass windows. But it's not, instead Antonique Liselotta Clemente is the name of a girl who is none of those things. I don't own a single tea set. I have a pet snake and a decent brain. that's about it. A really good brain actually. the kind that's a disappointment if you don't use.Maybe that's why i don't use it, cos im not perfect little antonique. i'm toni clemente and i don't owe the world jack shit.

I walk into math class on the first day of class and a young woman with blond hair in a loose bun stands at the front of the room holding a clipboard for roll call. yay. roll call. wonderful. she goes down the list. Jane Adams, Nathan Adler, Victor Betley… Antonique Liseletta Clemente. she looks up expecting some one who deserves a name like that. Instead she sees me in a big grey hoodie that covers my hands “ Its Tony, actually” i say she nods. of course it's Tony; that girl can't be an antonique: she's not pretty enough, and she can't be that smart. Good. if she thinks that she won't bother me 

its lunch time next and i'm sitting alone under a tree eating my sandwich. You can hear the static buzz of other students talking but no actual words. I brush a curl out of my face before it falls it to egg salad hanging of the side of the bread when i hear steps walking up behind me.  
“hey” says a small voice of a girl in a flowery dress. she sits down next to me

“yo” I don't quite know what to say. “umm…” I look away uncomfortably and then look back again.  
“..So what's your name” 

“I'm Julianne” She looks like a Julianne; She's small and blond and has freckles dotting

the cheeks under her blue eyes and bridge of her nose. The aforementioned flowery dress fitted her petite frame in a way far more appropriate for the spring day then the slouchy jeans i had been wearing since monday. It showed her body in the same way her smiling eyes showed her happiness; in the same way my permanent eye-contact with the ground didn’t.   
Julianne doesn't seem to notice the fact that I haven't looked at her for more than about a half a second and sits down next to my. she pulls out a paper bag clipped shut with a pink binder clip. That was the day I decided that Julianne was perfect and that was the day i think about every day now. The day we first met and the day my life changed.  
\-----------------------------  
It was a week later and Julianne had sat with every lunch that week. I had learned she had 3 cats (Vincent,Marcus,and Theodora) was deathly afraid of airplanes, collected succulents, and once accidentally swallowed a goldfish attempting a magic trick. That was when she started to notice that i wore the same clothes every day and had the same lunch all week. On Friday she brought me a second of her lunch: pasta salad, tuna too dip crackers in, half a pomegranate and a long carrot from her garden. She told me she made it herself. I think that was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.

We talked at lunch about school work and she complained about how much math homework she had. I laughed. Math had always been easy for me. I ended up somewhat awkwardly accidentally inviting my self over to her houses as a tutor. Julianne seemed excited; somewhat too excited -- Even I don’t usually get that excited about algebra.   
It was cute how Julianne complained. One would expect it to be annoying but i was’nt. her face scrunched up as she pouted, making it look like her freckles would pop right out of her face, and her eyebrows furrowed.As I got to know Julianne, I learned to drink in her facial expressions like water: from her heart shapes hair line to the gap between her teeth. I could go on but that's not the point 

The point is that Julianne was the first and closest friend I ever had and I only knew her a few weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

I showed up at Julianne's little house at about 12, after I got home from the church grandma insisted i go to. I walked up a cement path lines with peonies and tulips till i reached the front door. It was painted pastel blue and had a what door knocker with a ceramic canary sitting on it. I couldn't see inside because the windows were covered in white polka dotted curtains.They reminded me of how Julianne laughs: Light and musical and bubbly, like a little bird jumping up and down because it exited about an old lady throwing bird seed.

I ring the doorbell. It sings out four low and comforting notes. DING dong ding Dong. Julianne answers with her sunshine-colored hair in a towel. she's wearing purple leggings and a t shirt with a monkey that advertises the local zoo. She smiles like the monkey on her shirt, showing the gap between her two front teeth and far more mischief that necessary for math tutoring. I have a gap between my teeth too and I wish it was cute like hers, but instead it because my brother punched my in the face when I was 11 and knocked it out.

We sit down at round dining table with a lace tablecloth over it and curved decorative legs. I take out my textbook and turn to page 394, " systems of equations" which we were being tested On on Monday. I start to explain, " so basically a system of equations just means that these are to graphs and you're looking for the place they intersect" Julianne nods " so the easiest way to solve it is the graph but that's not always the most accurate" Julianne is still nodding "so instead we do it algebraically by figuring out when the two equations are equal, okay?" Julianne is staring at me and smiling like a lighthouse   
" you no your really smart right tony "  
We make I contact form the first time. Her eyes are light brown buts beautiful light brown like an autumn leaf   
" yeah I guess" i'm stuttering and blushing and at the time I didn't know why. We went back to work.   
"So you can use either replacement or setting them equal, witch do you wanna do first" 

We continued math for 2 hours until we got all Julianne's homework done because she apparently had done absolutely none since we started this unit. But that was ok. I like math and I like Julianne. After we finished work, Julianne decided we ought to have tea. She so like that, so polite and old fashioned and sweet. She brought out a dainty tea set with colorful flowers on the sides and two teacups that didn't match at all ( one was bright red , the other pastel yellow stripes) the creamer and sugar were creamy white with ornamental fake pearls. See asked me if I preferred mint or chamomile. I chose mint be I use the flavor has more punch. Julianne laughed at my explanation 

We talked over tea And The pink sugar cookies Julianne had made last night. The were light and fluffy like her. We talk more for another hour and I learned more about Julianne. She likes to bake and paints her nail a different color every day ( today they were hearts in honor of Valentine's Day next week) she also drew and danced ballet. At the time she seemed so fucking lucky and I was so fucking jealous . Perfect perfect Julianne. She could been an Antonique. Pretty and talented and perfect perfect perfect

Halfway through the conversation Julianne tries to invite her way to my house saying it would be nice to see but I blanch at the idea of perfect Julianne seeing my 2 bedroom apartment with my grandma and 3 siblings. I refused as politely as I could but it comes out awkward and rude sounding. I think she must probably hate me now but she hardly reacts


	3. Chapter 3

Valentine's Day is one of my least favorite days of the year but it was one of Julianne's favorite. She gave me a hand drawn card if snake say it wants to slither into my heart because I guess she new that snakes and subtle Harry Potter reference were the way to my soul. She invited me out to dinner with I thought was odd but I said yes because I had nothing better to do so we went out to an Italian restaurant that was the nicest place I'd been In Ages but Julianne seemed to think of as relatively cheapish.

I decide I should probably dress up kind if so I put black jeans with a button down shirt. I felt awkward with the buttons stretched around my chest but I decided it was better than how I normally looked so I rolled with it.

We sat down at at a candle lit table with a crystalline white table cloth. Before we sat down Julianne stood on her tiptoes and stuck a Peonie - presumably from her front yard - into my hair behind my ear. She looked like the peonies sister, with wavy hair and pink lipstick. She wore a bubblegum polka dot dress thew made her look like a fairy in a cartoon. I had never been comfortable in dresses but Julianne made it look like it was made for her. 

Julianne’s smile matched the candlelight as it sprinkles through her eyes. I stare at her and absorb her. I realize we've been making eye contact for a while and I gasp silently as a realize what she must think of my dull black eyes   
“your eyes are pretty” I think as Julianne says it out loud. My jaw drops as I gasp quietly   
“no they’re not.” i say slightly too loudly. Julianne Laughs  
“ Yes they are” and she sighs “ sometimes at night when i can't sleep, I Walk down the street to this park and down this hiking trail in the trees where they have that fake mini-forest thing, and if you walk far enough you reach this clearing where you can look up and see the sky where it's probably as free of light pollution as anywhere in the city. It calms me down cause you can count all the stars and just breathe in all the pine-y air for a minute until your brain slows down enough to walk home and go to sleep. that's what your eyes look like.” She smiles and sighs again. I don't quite know how to respond.   
“ They’re just black”  
“ No they're not, they have dark blue splotches like the sky and gold flecks like stars.” I’m gaping at her now petrified with shock that someone as perfect as Julianne thought i was pretty.

I think about Julianne and her starry night she has made from my eyes as i sit on the floor next the large plastic box i had put my snake in to feed him. His velvety scales and sickly yellow eyes glisten in the artificial light of my desk lamp. I had always thought of him as a kind of soulmate, a soul to go to when. I was upset. Because that's what friends are for. They're the people you go to when your life is falling apart and you don't know what to do. 

I can't run to Julianne because she is gravity. And now my feet are up in the air and I can't run to anyone let alone her. I want to run to Julianne. And kiss her again and again and again. Oh yeah, that's the other thing I should mention. Julianne kissed me that day : she tasted like lavender.  
I sigh, both in frustration and at the memory. I drop a dead mouse into the box and watch it get constricted then devoured. I'll let the snake eat my feelings. I feed him them all.


	4. Chapter 4

It was raining the next morning as i trudge the school. Any other kid would have had their parents drive them but mom had work at 600 am that she couldn't miss and besides, it was only a few miles

As i walk past the corner of julianne's street, I think about are kiss and everything that surrounded it. How her nose had nose had pressed against mine in little eskimo kissed before and how her eyelashes had fluttered when she opened her eyes to meet mine. And how i had callously gaped at her like a fucking goldfish. Like I wasn’t desperately in love her witch, after a long night of no sleep i had determined i was. I walk faster out of embarrassment.

I her slashing of puddles behind me and before i can turn around i feel warm hands wrap around my waist and hear julianne’s bubbly laughter. 

“ Hey Ton’.” Her smile shows off the gap between her teeth. I smile shakily and try to pretend i’m fine.   
“Hey” The word ends with an unintended question mark and Julianne giggles at me and raises an eyebrow   
“ You okay?”  
“Yeah.. Yeah just tired. I didn't sleep very well last night”  
Julianne sighed in response, “Yeah, me neither” 

As i look at her again i notice she does look tired, he usually bright eyes have a bluish tint to the area below them and they lack her usual sparkle. He skin looks shinier and and almost sickly. She must have had a worse night than i did. 

“Did something happen?’ I say. Julianne looks up at me and smiles lightly   
“ No,”s frowns “well yes.. But no. It's complicated”  
Julianne stops walking mid-puddle and i follow suit. She takes a deep breath, grabs my arm and pull me into a tree. She leans against it.   
“I'm justs sad is all.” She starts then stops  
“Why”  
“Well sad isn't quite the right word, i'm more numb.”” She paused to think  
“Do you ever feel like you wont amount to anything cause i just feel like all my talents don't matter. I mean i can draw but i'm not creative like other artists. I'm not particularly smart, i cant do math for shit and i don't have a good memory. My grades are solid Cs. and i'm not even a particularly nice person. If i did i’d have more than one friend. But instead i force you into crap like helping muy with homework. There's a reason no one likes me and the way i see it if thats what im like than i don't deserve to live.  
Again i'm gaping at her like a goldfish “Julianne” i stammer “ I Love you, you know.” Her face slackened in a horror i didn't understand and her jaw dropped. I went to put my hand on her shoulder and she stepped back angrily, throwing a fist at my face. Then i'm on the ground and she's above me shaking   
“ I loved you too”  
\------------------  
That was the last thing Julianne ever said to me. I heard the news the next day. We had an assembly at school in honor of her. There was a slide show of her smiling and laughing. Some of the pictures i knew had me next to her cropped out. I would have prefered if they had just shown a picture of her corpse. I would have hurt less to not try and remember


End file.
